Is a PKO BP Supervisory Board Member a PEP?
Short answer: no, not on the basis of being a supervisory board member of PKO BP. The PEP list covers boards of state enterprises and of companies where the State Treasury holds more than half of the shares. The State Treasury holds roughly 29% of PKO BP, well below that threshold, so membership of its supervisory board does not by itself confer PEP status.
As always, the position of the individual matters, not just the institution. A person can be a PEP for an entirely separate reason, for example because they hold another listed public function.
What the regulation says
The 2021 regulation (Dz.U. 2021 poz. 1381), issued under the AML Act of 1 March 2018, lists the relevant corporate positions:
- director or president of a state enterprise, or an equivalent position (item 24)
- chair of the supervisory board of a state enterprise (item 25)
- member of the supervisory board of a state enterprise (item 26)
- president, board member, supervisory board chair or supervisory board member of a company with State Treasury participation in which more than half of the shares or interests belong to the State Treasury or other state legal persons (items 27 to 30)
The decisive phrase is “more than half”. A minority Treasury stake is not enough.
The PKO BP case
PKO Bank Polski is the largest Polish universal bank and is listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. Its shareholder structure is diversified: the State Treasury holds around 29% of the capital, with the remainder held by pension funds and other investors. Because that stake is below 50%, the bank does not meet the “more than half” test, and a member of its supervisory board is therefore not a PEP under the corporate category.
Contrast this with a company where the State Treasury holds a clear majority. There, supervisory board and management board members are PEPs, and screening them is mandatory.
Why the threshold matters
The “more than half” rule is a useful filter, but it needs to be applied with current data. Shareholding changes, and so does the composition of boards. A person who was not a PEP last year can become one after a change in ownership or an appointment.
Screening the corporate dimension
For obliged institutions, the practical task is to check whether a customer or beneficial owner sits on a board that meets the state-control test, and to re-check when ownership or appointments change. A screening tool that combines PEP data with company information is the efficient way to do this. Hyperflow provides PEP screening through an API so that these checks can run automatically.
UK perspective
The UK test is function based. The Money Laundering Regulations 2017 treat members of the administrative, management or supervisory bodies of State-owned enterprises as PEPs, and the FCA expects enhanced due diligence for them. The precise scope depends on whether the entity qualifies as State-owned.